Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - August 15, 2025


Ep 12： This REALLY happened at one of Hollywood's Biggest Animation Studios !!!


Episode Stats


Length

37 minutes

Words per minute

136.77263

Word count

5,153

Sentence count

27

Harmful content

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I talk to a man who has never shared his story about how he got into Hollywood and how he became a story trainee at Disney. He talks about being sexually assaulted by a male co-worker at a party and how it almost killed him.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 I froze. I couldn't move and everybody froze in the room and I finally able to like manage to pull
00:00:06.540 my shorts and just basically I ran out of the room. This happens most unexpected place, a place
00:00:14.680 you make children movies. Hi and welcome to Flossom Talk the podcast. I am Shashli Flo and here in my
00:00:26.880 podcast I talk about other things that I usually talk about on my YouTube channel where I post
00:00:31.640 things every single day mostly about Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni's legal drama but here on my
00:00:36.920 podcast I do talk about other things and sometimes I talk about serious things which I will talk about
00:00:42.760 today with a very special guest. Someone contacted me in LA a little while back and they said you know
00:00:49.700 I have this story for you. This person who experienced something so horrific in Hollywood
00:00:55.700 and this person has never talked about it before. I read the story and I was shocked. I was just
00:01:03.200 so disgusted and I just could not believe what I was reading and the thing is I was assuming that
00:01:11.040 this happened to a woman and I didn't realize it actually had happened to a man and when this person
00:01:17.020 told me that he wanted to come here on my channel and tell his story I was so honored by that and I
00:01:25.140 hope you guys will listen to his entire story and share some love in the comment section because I
00:01:31.740 think it's amazing that he found the strength to talk about this and do it here in this amazing
00:01:38.280 community. Yes if you're watching on YouTube you can comment below if you are listening on other
00:01:45.160 podcasts please share and like and subscribe if you haven't and yes please welcome Kam. Thank you so
00:01:53.940 much for being here on Flossom Talk and telling your story which is a very disturbing story but we're
00:02:00.440 going to start talking about something a little nicer. We're going to start talking about how you got
00:02:05.700 into Hollywood because that's kind of a crazy story. It is and thank you for inviting me. I used to live in
00:02:14.940 Arkansas. I started waiting tables at this place called Jackson Suzanne's. It was a French restaurant
00:02:21.820 and when Chef moved to California to Malibu to work on this at this restaurant called Splash
00:02:30.360 he said you want to come over? I said oh yeah. So I went there during 80s, mid 80s and Johnny Carson
00:02:43.260 who was one of our customers, regulars, who almost came every other night and I had a habit of drawing.
00:02:55.740 Drawing of I love drawing Duffy Duck. I love drawing sketches of people making him caricatures of them.
00:03:03.660 So one night Johnny's wife left for the bathroom and then we were chatting and honestly he was he had some alcohol
00:03:15.660 and he saw those sketches and he goes like what are you doing here? You should be working at Disney.
00:03:23.180 And I go oh yeah right okay. Whatever. I didn't make anything big about it and it's like but when time passed I
00:03:36.300 started thinking about it. I said maybe I should at least find out where Disney was. I didn't even know where Disney
00:03:43.180 Studios are and um so I looked up the yellow pages they didn't have Google back then um and I got their
00:03:53.820 number I called them up find out where they were at Flower Street in Glendale and I hopped in my
00:04:03.020 uh Volkswagen Bug and got all my um sketches in a bag not even a portfolio and I went there and there was a
00:04:17.340 lady named Dee at the reception and I said well I have all these sketches and I want to work at Disney
00:04:26.220 and I placed the sketches on the counter and she kind of laughed at me and she goes well do you have a
00:04:34.860 phone number you can leave with us in case we like your sketches and I said oh yeah I left my number
00:04:42.300 and I went back to my car and I said this was stupid and uh two weeks went by I got a call from them
00:04:52.300 um guy named Bill Matthews he was in charge of the training programs there and he said that they
00:05:01.020 thought I had talent and uh he said um they wanted me to go there's the school called CalArts California
00:05:12.460 Institute of the Arts in Valencia I did that for three weeks uh three months and then I came back and
00:05:20.940 I presented my portfolio to them and I got it I became a story trainee um Lion King uh that was my first
00:05:36.620 picture I worked on they moved me to another picture called Pocahontas I don't know if you are familiar with
00:05:44.700 yeah and I became a story artist there um I worked on Hercules I worked on Kingdom of the Sun
00:05:54.380 anyhow so I worked there 15 years altogether 15 years at Disney and that was your like dream job
00:06:01.180 would you say that was a dream job for you I loved working there it wasn't just I never saw it as a job
00:06:08.860 Disney was I thought like I was I was playing and getting paid for it it wasn't as business like
00:06:16.540 like it like it is now it was a great environment great people to work with I would say nothing bad
00:06:24.300 about them I mean yeah they may say you know hey Disney's cheap yeah they're a little bit cheap
00:06:29.740 but it's okay um they give you a lot of opportunities because like if you work at Disney everyone respects
00:06:38.700 you everyone knows your name that's the placket I got like you know for 10 years oh wow I worked at
00:06:46.540 Sony for 11 years then I worked at DreamWorks for seven years I think and then year and a half at
00:06:55.900 Warner Brothers all together four studios yeah so you know the studios you got to know I do know the
00:07:03.500 yeah I knew though the big buddies and then you did have an experience that changed everything yeah you
00:07:10.860 know the the um if you ask me what happened like I would say summarize the whole thing I would say
00:07:19.180 I had a dream came through and someone came and crushed it and took it away from me
00:07:29.420 that's that's what happened basically um
00:07:35.420 I was such an outgoing person I was um people always told me like you know
00:07:42.140 Khan always brings good ideas in meetings in brainstorm meetings even like you know
00:07:49.340 when we go to lunches without with my colleagues we would discuss the movie we're working on and
00:07:56.140 story problems I I love that you know because it wasn't a job it was again like it was part of my life
00:08:03.500 I didn't like you know go home and and thought okay you know what I've done my job today
00:08:09.660 I took the whole thing with me in the middle of the night I was cold my friend and talk about like
00:08:15.900 well we can do this here we can do that there it was like that um so after the incident um
00:08:29.580 I I stopped um going out I stopped uh I try not to go to meetings I try not to
00:08:38.300 go to lunches anymore I start working from home um I I I was very hesitant to talk
00:08:52.460 about my ideas I didn't even bring them up sorry I just have to jump in here to say thank you so much
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00:10:18.700 VPN you can find the link in my description thanks again to Surfshark and now back to Khan's story so
00:10:26.620 can you can you can you kind of go I know this is hard for you to talk about but can you go through
00:10:31.340 that day what actually happened to you uh that changed everything that changed your life that
00:10:37.900 changed the way you look at life and and work in and everything well okay we have I need to first talk
00:10:47.340 about like how we do our jobs like I I'm given scene which is script pages um that's what we call lounge
00:10:59.420 the director and uh PA usually taking notes they launch me um on the pages of the sequence um we talk
00:11:13.340 about it and director says this is what I want from the scene um and then I start board it um and we don't
00:11:23.100 just uh like in live action when they board they usually think about the staging but we also think
00:11:31.180 about acting staging everything sometimes dialogue we add dialogue we take out dialogue uh we kind of make
00:11:39.180 the movie on storyboards honestly so every time we finish the storyboarding process like we have to pitch
00:11:47.500 it to directors and get their notes and the way we pitch usually we uh upload it on a uh server
00:11:57.500 the the studio server and then um we pitch it on the big screen through our computers
00:12:05.820 so everybody else sits as i pitch everybody else lines up and sits behind me and after pitch i get up on
00:12:15.420 and i face them i turn around and face them standing up in front of the um the big screen and we go
00:12:25.740 because we have to go through shot by shot with the directors their notes um so basically that day
00:12:33.420 that's what happened i pitched the scene given scene both directors were there we had a
00:12:40.860 main director and a co-director we also had the head of story in the room we had the producer in the room
00:12:48.700 along with um the the line producer we had the um the layout head of layout we have the department heads
00:13:01.820 they're all there because they're all there because if there's any change in the story they have to know
00:13:06.940 uh they have to then adjust their um backgrounds and whatever um so um there were several people i would say about
00:13:20.060 more than 10 people in the room including one person was joining us from um zoom on a screen
00:13:29.820 a different screen a different screen on my back um and from vermont a story artist
00:13:40.220 so i finish pitching the scene then i turn around and get up face the director and others
00:13:47.900 and i noticed the the director got up and left his seat and start moving towards me and past me
00:14:00.540 i thought he was gonna um move the screen to see different shots he he probably started oh he saw
00:14:10.940 something he wants to see that and before i had a chance to turn around um
00:14:19.500 i felt two hands grabbing my shorts and forcefully you know pulled them down all the way everything
00:14:29.660 everything um i was i was like i i froze i couldn't move and everybody froze in the room
00:14:44.700 except him he was laughing in my back
00:14:49.500 and i i i was going like i didn't understand what was going on and i was in shock i was
00:14:59.980 so you were done you were standing there basically naked in front of all these people exactly
00:15:07.420 um co-director was a feet away from me sitting i mean i catch his eyes and they he was doing this
00:15:16.940 and i finally able to like managed to pull my shorts and just basically i ran out of the room
00:15:27.740 went back to my office i could hear his laugh um as i was leaving was anyone else laughing no no
00:15:38.380 whole room was frozen um i went to back to my office i think it was maybe less than a minute
00:15:50.940 uh both co-director not the director who did it co-director and head of story came to my room and
00:15:58.380 and and told me to go to hr you have to go to the hr con i i was just sitting there
00:16:09.980 sudden disbelief and shock um after like maybe five minutes and all this time they were saying let's go
00:16:22.060 we'll come with you just go to hr um producer came in the room and this is what he said to me he said
00:16:34.540 con this was horrible um i'm so sorry this happened can i bring the director in to apologize from you
00:16:45.740 wow um i just looked at him i didn't answer i didn't say anything he left the room
00:16:59.100 and he came back with the director and director was
00:17:04.940 i mean i i don't think he knew what he did he goes con i'm sorry man i was just it was a joke i thought
00:17:18.220 it was a good joke that's what he told me it but but it was a joke oh i want to tell him like you know
00:17:25.660 i can't repeat the joke this time i will pull you out your shorts in front of you yeah but um
00:17:32.620 um um but that uh right there told me i i know a lot of people says like you know why didn't you go to
00:17:43.260 hr why didn't you yeah all this years well i had that was a message if they wanted because producer
00:17:59.180 is the supervisor in the in the room at that point and you know we took these um we watched these videos
00:18:08.220 it was it's about government guidelines and rules in the workplace um so you have any training you have
00:18:16.860 to do training and once a year every year and you have to pass if you can't pass they make you take it
00:18:23.420 again and again until you pass you don't you're out you cannot work in this studio and it's not just
00:18:30.700 studios it's um it could be a home depot you have to have that uh it could be um lawn supermarket you have
00:18:41.740 to have to have that you know um so and i when i watched that video um i know i'm so sure and it is
00:18:54.060 that way i know because i took that video so many times it says if the supervisor witnesses a a
00:19:03.660 harassment or assault they have to report no matter victim is want to report it or not that's not the
00:19:15.740 thing they have to report it and they witnessed it yes so it's not like they have to take your word for
00:19:23.580 it they were there and they saw what happened right and they didn't do anything oh well they did
00:19:30.860 okay he came to my room and he said can you accept the apology basically he was saying
00:19:39.260 let's that's making it even worse don't you think that made it worse in my exactly that would make
00:19:45.420 it worse because that's even more like i don't know intimidating or you're like in still in shock
00:19:52.780 in such a horrible place like he was you know taking advantage of you in front of all these people
00:20:01.020 and then yeah he says it's a joke that's the that's the apology yeah he thought it was a joke and
00:20:10.620 and the producer instead of going to hr he's telling me forget about this con he did he said that to you
00:20:19.100 well he didn't say it that that way but he said can i bring him in and apologize and basically he's saying
00:20:28.460 don't and then and then we're done
00:20:30.860 that's what he was suggesting yeah yeah that's all that he needed to do was apologize and then
00:20:36.860 everyone could just move on yes nothing happened we're a happy family you know um which makes me
00:20:44.540 think i i cannot you know i cannot prove this but i cannot imagine because he came into my room
00:20:55.980 maybe five six minutes later um not right away like the co-director and and the head of story
00:21:04.220 put these who came into my into my room five or six minutes later i guarantee you he called
00:21:12.140 someone up higher and discuss what happened i cannot true it but i think that was his orders
00:21:23.020 okay whatever you do make this go away honestly and and i that's what i got the message was
00:21:33.420 just accept the apology and let's move on because he could have come to my room and said come
00:21:46.140 i'm terribly sorry but don't worry i'm going to hr yeah if you can come with me it'll be great if not
00:21:53.180 i will report this that's what he should have done so no one ended up reporting this no no one and honestly
00:22:04.860 when i saw and felt you know the producer is is not backing me he said he's telling me to basically accept the apology
00:22:18.940 i said i want to keep my job and i don't want to look like a troublemaker because i understood this is
00:22:31.020 this is how i could keep my job and that's sorry go ahead but do you think do you think that they would
00:22:41.180 you know ask you to leave whatever if you actually brought it up that that would be a consequence for
00:22:46.620 you or that they maybe would push you out of your job because you know because you actually reported
00:22:53.980 right i don't know that but that's what i thought that's that's that's the impression i got because
00:23:03.500 um again as i said i didn't see the producers telling me i'm going to report this age to hr this is
00:23:14.380 not acceptable behavior instead he was saying let's just take just take the apology and
00:23:26.300 they not they did not fire the director you know director that is the most shocking part to me i have
00:23:34.140 to say i mean of course what he did is so shocking but that that they actually kept him and he's still
00:23:41.260 working is he still working there no um and he worked there well over a year after you know the
00:23:48.140 incident so it wasn't because of you anything that happened to you no no no not at all he got a better
00:23:55.740 offer from another studio and he moved on to that other studio um that was another thing that
00:24:07.740 thing that gets to me is that my life went downwards but these guys they kept their you know the one of them is still producing
00:24:23.180 in major hollywood studio and the other one is the director is going around doing his one man
00:24:33.260 piano shows um and he does book signings
00:24:40.380 can you imagine he wrote a book about how to make your life better he did oh yeah
00:24:45.980 yeah if you um if you google him up you can see
00:24:54.380 yeah he's i mean um i don't think his wife his wife knows what he did i don't think these kids knows
00:25:02.620 what he did but um so this is about is it 10 years ago now it it was in 2016.
00:25:10.540 okay so nine years ago and when after this happened uh you kind of stopped going into
00:25:19.580 work and started working from home and started isolating yourself well in my mind this is what
00:25:26.860 i was thinking everyone knows in the studio what happened to me i everyone knows well that's what i was
00:25:36.700 thinking that's oh yes yeah okay i get it yeah because you know what yeah people leave the room they start
00:25:43.900 talking yeah you know and and i i thought like you know when i go to studio everyone's eyes out of me
00:25:53.900 and i thought i was a joke of the town and i i didn't want to see face that and
00:26:02.700 i i i i try to not to go to meetings um and i you know it's it's funny when i receive a call
00:26:16.380 from a colleague i used to like jump on the call and we would discuss i couldn't even answer the calls
00:26:25.260 i didn't want to even talk to them it's um you know everything i love doing became a burden to me
00:26:38.220 it was a it was hard and it still is i mean um did you yeah did you get depressed or like anxiety
00:26:47.500 social anxiety yeah as a matter of fact that's what it was i think you know i didn't want to be
00:26:55.180 around a lot of people and i still don't um oh yeah yeah oh my god sorry this is such a horrible
00:27:07.660 story i mean when i spoke to you because we did speak on the phone before this interview and i spoke
00:27:12.300 to you i was just in disbelief i was like how can anyone first of all how can anyone just do such
00:27:19.100 a horrible thing to someone and then he was a grown man and then how can he just get away with it
00:27:25.420 and how can people just stand there and watch and do nothing i mean yeah yeah it is uh so disturbing
00:27:36.540 you know if if anything comes out of this i would really love to have
00:27:46.460 some sort of like you know awareness this this happens in the most unexpected place a place you make
00:27:58.060 children movies yeah movies for kids studio is basically okay with it i don't buy at all the
00:28:08.460 studio didn't know about it they knew about it of course i mean you know like there were so many
00:28:15.180 witnesses watching this do you know if this man did anything similar to other people have you heard any
00:28:22.460 stories no i didn't honestly but um maybe i was an easy target for him i don't know well i was like
00:28:31.580 now i'm 66 i was like 56 years old and i'm not even your friend you know um i had no relationship
00:28:41.900 with him at all outside of work you know um i never gave him any reason to like he could do that to me
00:28:54.220 i mean there is no reason for anyone ever to do that to anyone i know i mean it's so absurd to me this man
00:29:01.420 is so sick he's like he is so sick and he got away with it i really hope that i have to make your lives 0.94
00:29:12.860 better i feel like first of all i have to say that i'm so proud of you for coming out here and talking
00:29:19.820 about it now and i i really think that you know it can help a lot of others and i think around especially
00:29:25.340 for men there's even more stigma around this and actually speaking up and experiencing something
00:29:31.340 like this and in the workplace and just like because for us i mean i've never experienced
00:29:37.500 something like that at all and to just kind of understand the mindset of what happens to you when
00:29:43.660 you experience something like this like everyone would say like you said why didn't you go to a jar
00:29:48.380 why didn't you report it instantly and then probably that makes you feel even more guilt around
00:29:54.300 it and start thinking did i invite him like you were just saying you know he wasn't my friend
00:29:58.620 i didn't you know i didn't deserve this why did this happen to me and all those questions that you
00:30:06.540 know and i think it's so important to talk about these things um yeah i really applaud you doing that
00:30:14.220 uh shasti it's by the way i learned your name yeah so it's so good well so it's very easy to say you
00:30:22.620 know go go go to your child speak up blah blah blah well if if it happens to you it's not that easy
00:30:31.500 i didn't want to even think about it i just but also like you know you're working and you still have a job
00:30:39.180 you don't want to stir the pot and go
00:30:42.220 you don't know how other people other studios will react because let's say i have a there's a
00:30:52.300 director who worked with me in the others in another studio and who wants me to work with him in his new
00:31:01.180 movie that he's making but studio can't say oh he's troubled yeah they can't say that you know because
00:31:11.340 he went to hr he did you know you never know and and when you're working you want to protect yourself
00:31:21.500 and that's what i did and um but then also thinking about it i never had a time
00:31:30.140 to think through because i was always busy well maybe i chose to be busy also like work
00:31:39.100 so i forget about it but after i retired it's like i had all the time i and i i had time to
00:31:49.100 process the whole thing and and really understand what happened to me
00:31:55.740 you know um and what kind of damage it created on me it's now i'm realizing that it's like
00:32:07.420 i live in my own prison basically in a way have you have you now taken any steps to get uh some justice
00:32:17.420 for this are you did you ever think about that like you know legal actions against them
00:32:23.180 yeah yeah i'm i'm thinking about it i well i have a lawyer but i want to wait i want to see what's
00:32:31.740 you know this was a good this is good actually let's see what this creates i mean i want them to
00:32:40.220 to acknowledge what they did is wrong number one and make sure they don't do it again
00:32:48.380 why do you why do you have people watch those videos um several hours
00:32:56.860 the training yeah and then take tests and pass those tests if they don't watch them again watch
00:33:04.940 those videos again and then allow this kind of i'm sorry to say this is where shit happened 0.55
00:33:11.500 you know what it is it's in the little bit of in hollywood culture i think it's like we're untouchable
00:33:20.060 you know and i feel like i've been talking about so much here on this channel as well you know how
00:33:26.940 there's so many cowards out there and i think people are so afraid of losing their jobs for speaking up and
00:33:32.860 most of the time it feels like it doesn't really you know it's it doesn't benefit you in any way if
00:33:41.180 you actually speak up and that's probably you know like you were saying that you were afraid that you
00:33:47.020 will lose your job and that people wouldn't be wanting to hire you again and i think these are the
00:33:52.140 same things that you hear from women that have experienced things like this that they don't want to stand 0.94
00:33:56.780 up and talk about it because they're afraid and um anyways yeah but i'm so so so honored that you
00:34:06.460 wanted to talk about it here and i really hope that something good will come out of this for you
00:34:12.940 maybe you write a book about it and you know maybe yeah who knows we're gonna make it we make a movie about
00:34:19.900 this yeah yeah they all claim like you know um they do these big benefits and they they always claim
00:34:30.220 how they are behind like you know um what's it the she movement um me too me too movement
00:34:41.820 and how they're like you know black lives matter movement they're behind and then turn around do this
00:34:47.340 kind of stuff yeah don't don't do that you know be honest you know um the hypocrisy yes honestly
00:34:57.660 that's like that's too much and in this day and age stop it man you're a grown-up yeah be a grown-up
00:35:07.100 it's it's cowardly you know what the the way the producer that day and what the director did to me
00:35:17.020 it's cowardly it's it's it's it's i don't think a strong person would do those things of course i
00:35:25.340 mean you know it's a lot of insecurities is a lot of being a coward being a complete jerk and a narcissist 0.59
00:35:33.340 and an yeah basically he was thinking like you know i'm an actor and um i have shows and um
00:35:44.700 i'm the director here and he's nothing i can do anything i want to him that's what he was thinking
00:35:56.300 and the producer was thinking like oh you know what i gotta keep my job so i gotta make sure
00:36:04.780 this this doesn't blow up on our faces you know yeah there's more environment yeah i know it really
00:36:16.140 sounds like that anyways count it was so nice to talk to you and i really appreciate your honesty and
00:36:22.540 openness and everything and i'm sure all the viewers here are really going to appreciate to hear your story
00:36:29.180 as well and it's so important to get these stories out there so thank you really thank you thank you
00:36:34.540 for doing this and um yeah i hope you get enough strength back to enjoy life again and that's something
00:36:42.140 good pasta day will come out in the end and uh yeah hopefully thank you thank you thank you thank you
00:36:52.620 thank you so much to khan for coming here and sharing this story i know it wasn't easy for him to talk about
00:36:58.700 this we spoke on the phone before this interview and i have to say i was just shocked i'm still shocked by
00:37:05.820 this i mean i have no words um but as i said i'm so honored that he came here to talk about this and
00:37:12.140 so please share some love in the comment section if you're watching this on youtube or if you're
00:37:16.700 listening on spotify apple amazon uh please share and like and yes if you haven't subscribed yet please
00:37:25.100 do and hit the notification bell on youtube if you're there so you don't miss an episode of my podcast
00:37:29.980 or an episode on my youtube show and again thank you so much for giving khan the chance to tell his
00:37:36.780 story and um yeah we've lost some talk